The time and place I grew up, I had to read about many more films than I had the opportunity to actually see. So many of the films I fell in love with were, for years, only descriptions on the page, a high-contrast still or two, and the passion of a writer convincing me I had to track this down somehow. Two of the great, tantalizing tomes I pored over were The American Cinema and Film as a Subversive Art. It's been a hell of a year.

In 400 years, due to gaps in the historical record, a robust debate will have broken out about who REALLY directed Hitchcock's movies.

While the majority of scholarship will insist that Hitchcock indeed was the director, a minority will dissent that a hammy actor like Hitchcock, (many of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV shows will have survived), not to mention the son of a greengrocer, could not have actually been responsible for the great films.

Among the dissenters, the two main factions will divide between those who believe that Jean-Luc Godard was the REAL director, and those who believe it was Andrew Sarris.

A singular voice of wisdom, dignity and good humor. Sorely to be missed.

From what a distant outsider could glean, the "great rivalry" always seemed a bit one-sided in Sarris' favor. But one would have had to be there to appreciate fully. At times like this, I wish I had been.

What was one-sided about it was the fact that Pauline wouldn't admit to being an auteurist herself. She just liked different auteurs: Huston instead of Hawks and Brian DePalma instead of almost everyone.

All I'd like to add is that in the brief and very limited capacity that I knew him in a professional setting 12 or 13 years ago, he was unfailingly kind and warm. It did not take him long to convey a sense of caring - and this was a setting where it certainly wasn't necessary on his part to do so.